To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Ryan

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
5,688
Location
Texas/Hawaii
I’ve been working on a project recently that involves some old Apollo era switches. While searching for tutorials on how to mess with those, I ran across a Frenchman that lives for this ****… and his YouTube channel is ridiculous. He does everything from rebuilding Soviet era space flown mission timers to completely reworking Apollo era guidance computers.



It is massively impressive…



And while I know this is pretty far from the wheelhouse of this joint, I thought some of you might enjoy the technical side of all this as much as I did.


[embedyt]


You can view all of Marc’s videos here.

Continue reading...
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Garcky

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
3,434
Location
Twin Cities Metro Area, Minnesota

Metallitubby

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 12, 2019
Messages
25,255
Location
ATL OTP North
Ryan,

My grandfather was a COMS specialist for Bell Labs on Apollo and Shuttle programs. He gave me almost all of his books, documents, and tchotchkes from that era. If there is anything communication related that may be of value to you, you are welcome to it.
 
OP
R

Ryan

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
5,688
Location
Texas/Hawaii
Ryan,

My grandfather was a COMS specialist for Bell Labs on Apollo and Shuttle programs. He gave me almost all of his books, documents, and tchotchkes from that era. If there is anything communication related that may be of value to you, you are welcome to it.

Good god... I can't even imagine.
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
I Love this stuff but more from the software side. The book "Digital Apollo" was a great read. The details of what they did are amazing. Even taking into account the fuel burn in real time to constantly adjust thrust, etc. to compensate for the weight loss of the expended fuel.

 

qdvuu

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 8, 2008
Messages
605
Location
Norcal
Anybody know if there are any shops that deal in used space and aerospace parts/equipment? Ideally a brick n mortar shop but online would be fine, too. I just love this stuff!
 

pcmeiners

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
7,793
Location
In the only town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
Before rents on Canal street( NYC Manhattan ) got ridiculous, and surplus sales restrictions you could buy just about anything related to rockets or aircraft. Not unusual to see gigantic rocket engines, control board, liquid rocket fuel tanks, ejection seats, astronaut suits, ethylene oxide generators etc hanging, or on shelves in the surplus stores for sale.
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
Anybody know if there are any shops that deal in used space and aerospace parts/equipment? Ideally a brick n mortar shop but online would be fine, too. I just love this stuff!
Used to be one down here in La Mirada but they're long gone. Used to have the Rockwell surplus store nearby too but that whole complex is now a shopping center.
 

jimkinney

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
298
Location
Florida's Space Coast
I don't have any Apollo era flight hardware, but have a still working lab power supply that came from Marshall Spaceflight Center. Components have date codes from mid 60's.
My uncle bought it at an auction in the 70's.
 

Gozo

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 10, 2013
Messages
247
Location
Central VA
Before rents on Canal street( NYC Manhattan ) got ridiculous, and surplus sales restrictions you could buy just about anything related to rockets or aircraft.
I used to spend my Saturday mornings scrounging around the shops on and around Canal Street. Then pop down to Chinatown for lunch and hop on the subway and head home with a bag full of surplus ****. I’ve probably still got some of that stuff in the back of some shelves in the garage. Life was so much simpler then…
 

pcmeiners

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
7,793
Location
In the only town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.
Yes I was up there a few times a month, or down at the Englishtown market.

Yes purchased quit a lot of materials on Canal, like new 60kv wire which I connected to a very large 25lb neon sign transfer, 35,000vdc@25milliamps. Too bad the wire failed miserably. Nothing like being thrown across a room and being paralyzed for about 30 minutes...got to admit it was very EXTREMELY relaxing....I highly recommend shock treatment, but not to that extent. :thumbup:
 
Last edited:
OP
R

Ryan

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
5,688
Location
Texas/Hawaii
A few years ago I built the BF/MFT workbench out of 80/20. Some of that 80/20 was given to me by NASA’s Mission Mars lab. I was on a tour with a pal, asked about a stack of it in an alley, and was told to take anything that was previously cut.

I don’t have anything important... but I have lots of vintage switches, console lights, etc… most from auctions in Houston.
 

Stuart in MN

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 8, 2005
Messages
22,901
Location
Minneapolis
I'm a retired electrical engineer. In the 1990s I was a NASA subcontractor (still have my ID badge in a box somewhere.) Most of my time was spent in Langley, VA but I did a little work in Houston as well. I had the opportunity to see some pretty cool old stuff, they had some research facilities dating back decades that were still in use. However, I wasn't able to take home any souvenirs. :) My main contact was a fellow who had been there since the 1940s (back when it was still NACA); he had some interesting stories to tell.
 

willy3486

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
1,585
Location
Middle Tennessee
I have a degree in Electronic engineering and put in for a job being a instrument tech at a place that does engine testing for military projects. As I was talking to them I begin to hear this really loud noise. I must have gotten startled from it as the fellow told me" oh thats the wind tunnel you will get use to it". At the time it was the largest wind tunnel in exisitance. They talked like they really wanted me as he said they really liked people from the college I went to. I didn't persue it as I was just married and it was 2nd shift. My wife worked 1st so I stayed where I was. I have known a lot of folks that worked there and heard some great stories. My wife had a cousin who was Wernher Von Braun secretary at Huntsville. She told some wild stories. I got to sit in one of the Mercury or Gemini capsules once. You would have to be sorter than I am,6ft 2 inches to be in there comfortable. If you were claustrophobic there is no way you could stay in there going up. As far as Nasa goes our daughter is a electrical engineer and if I am not mistaken she has worked on projects them.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Plombob

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
4,107
Location
Tennessee
Anybody know if there are any shops that deal in used space and aerospace parts/equipment? Ideally a brick n mortar shop but online would be fine, too. I just love this stuff!


There was a surplus store on Laurel Canyon just north of Sherman Way in North Hollywood CA. They had all kinds of things, including aerospace surplus. I see it's now called Norton Space Props. https://nortonsalesinc.com/
 

Stuart in MN

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 8, 2005
Messages
22,901
Location
Minneapolis
I have a degree in Electronic engineering and put in for a job being a instrument tech at a place that does engine testing for military projects. As I was talking to them I begin to hear this really loud noise. I must have gotten startled from it as the fellow told me" oh thats the wind tunnel you will get use to it". At the time it was the largest wind tunnel in exisitance.
If this was in Tennessee, I'm guessing you're talking about AEDC in Tullahoma (I used to work for another wind tunnel design firm, there aren't many companies that do that sort of work.) If I remember correctly at one time AEDC had the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel, but the biggest wind tunnel period is at NASA Ames in California. It has a cross section of 80 feet x 120 feet; they can test full size aircraft in it, but the wind speed is only like 100mph or so.

A funny story about the place I worked at: they have a test facility with around ten wind tunnels of various sizes and speeds, it's sort of out in the woods in an isolated area at the end of a dirt road. One night the guys working second shift noticed that a couple teenagers had pulled up in a car and were necking. They were parked right downstream from the discharge of the tunnel that was going to be running that night. When they started up the wind tunnel, it was coitus interruptus for those kids...they cleared out of there pretty fast. :D
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
One thing about the limited memory available back then is you had to be real economical about your programming...there was no room for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.

An instructor of mine, way back when, told us they used to have two versions of some programs - 1 with comments, 1 without.

The version without comments could be loaded and run. With the comments, the code took up too much space - was just used for reference.
 

willy3486

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
1,585
Location
Middle Tennessee
If this was in Tennessee, I'm guessing you're talking about AEDC in Tullahoma (I used to work for another wind tunnel design firm, there aren't many companies that do that sort of work.) If I remember correctly at one time AEDC had the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel, but the biggest wind tunnel period is at NASA Ames in California. It has a cross section of 80 feet x 120 feet; they can test full size aircraft in it, but the wind speed is only like 100mph or so.

A funny story about the place I worked at: they have a test facility with around ten wind tunnels of various sizes and speeds, it's sort of out in the woods in an isolated area at the end of a dirt road. One night the guys working second shift noticed that a couple teenagers had pulled up in a car and were necking. They were parked right downstream from the discharge of the tunnel that was going to be running that night. When they started up the wind tunnel, it was coitus interruptus for those kids...they cleared out of there pretty fast. :D
You are correct, AEDC. I couldn't remember what it was but the biggest hypersonic wind tunnel makes sense. Its been over 30 years since I interviewed there so my memory on what type of wind tunnel is fuzzy. I like that area in Tennessee, if I wasn't so established where I live I wouldn't mind living in that area. Back when they closed the barracks and turned it into AEDC my father in law salvaged some of the tin and other stuff from the barracks. He built a barn we now have. I have known quite a few people that worked there. When I wasn't looking for a job I got contacted by them but when I needed a job they had no openings with my skills. Oh well.
 

mhejl

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 7, 2015
Messages
327
Location
DFW Texas
An instructor of mine, way back when, told us they used to have two versions of some programs - 1 with comments, 1 without.

The version without comments could be loaded and run. With the comments, the code took up too much space - was just used for reference.
That was true into the late 1980s on the phone switching systems I coded for. But, no comments in the assembly code anywhere - documentation was via flowcharts; no 2nd code base with comments. Debugging was done with hex dumps, knowing where the registers were, OP codes, etc.

Patches consisted of inserting a jump-to-subroutine in the main code pointing to a (small) section of spare memory then a jump back to the main code.

Modern compiled code (e.g. C back then) was deemed too slow. Some ancillary code (e.g. billing records) were in PL/1 and records were written to those big mag tape reels for post-processing.

Then came the 800 network (wow, no more caller-pays toll calls or 10xxx prefixes?) then fast forward to mid-1990s and "The Web" then 30+ years to "The Cloud".

Oh, my, I'm regressing...
 

cherokee

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
980
Location
Kansas City MO
One thing about the limited memory available back then is you had to be real economical about your programming...there was no room for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.

That is one thing I have noticed over the years. I have done the "computer thing" for a living starting in 1983, with a short rest to work at a dealership in the middle there.

I remember Word Perfect being on 1 360k floppy with the dictionary being on one other 360K floppy. Now the same thing would not fit on a DVD...Yea I know a bit of a stretch but you know where I am going. People are lazy.

Drivers are what gets me, I remember dialing into a company for say a printer driver, couple hundred K at most, now a printer driver is a couple hundred MB.
 

MBfreak

MEMBER EMERITUS
Joined
Dec 10, 2010
Messages
2,301
Location
Linkoping , Sweden
I have done some stuff for turbine control in NP´s ( Ie 1 hip and 3 lop on same shaft as generator, 1500 RPM)
Only ADA allowed, and had t be totally compact. Typical RAM 32 kByte. Total program less than 164 kByte, running at 8MHz.
The development versions were tested on main frames.

Ola
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
That is one thing I have noticed over the years. I have done the "computer thing" for a living starting in 1983, with a short rest to work at a dealership in the middle there.

I remember Word Perfect being on 1 360k floppy with the dictionary being on one other 360K floppy. Now the same thing would not fit on a DVD...Yea I know a bit of a stretch but you know where I am going. People are lazy.

Drivers are what gets me, I remember dialing into a company for say a printer driver, couple hundred K at most, now a printer driver is a couple hundred MB.
Blame a lot of it on cheap memory and faster CPU's. You can write bloated code and not have a care in the world for the end user.

I used to compile C code on a dual floppy PC. Source on 1 disk, compiler on another. End of compile... Swap out that disk for the linker.

Ahhhh.... (not) the good old days.
 

dutchgray

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
6,456
Location
Dorset. England.
One thing about the limited memory available back then is you had to be real economical about your programming...there was no room for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.
And the really compact stuff was in assembly language straight on the metals, each computer would be different, the real geniuses knew all the tricks, some even the computer designers didn't know about.
 

Chaznsc

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
6,525
Location
SC
What amazes me, even in todays advanced era, is these fellows and gals did what had never been done, created what didn’t exist, and gone to where nobody had. They flung a capsule with people in it to the moon. They did it without instructions.
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
What amazes me, even in todays advanced era, is these fellows and gals did what had never been done, created what didn’t exist, and gone to where nobody had. They flung a capsule with people in it to the moon. They did it without instructions.
Amen. If you're a software geek, read Digital Apollo. Amazing stuff.
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
@Ryan - So... Are we ever going to get more detail? Looks like a fair number of space geeks interested here.
 
OP
R

Ryan

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
5,688
Location
Texas/Hawaii
@Ryan - So... Are we ever going to get more detail? Looks like a fair number of space geeks interested here.

Im actually building my own cctv/security system… and making it look a bit like a 60s era nasa Mission Control system. Hard to explain, but for obvious reasons it’s not something I want to show off.
 

qdvuu

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 8, 2008
Messages
605
Location
Norcal
Im actually building my own cctv/security system… and making it look a bit like a 60s era nasa Mission Control system. Hard to explain, but for obvious reasons it’s not something I want to show off.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see!
 

rharman

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,683
Location
SoCal
Im actually building my own cctv/security system… and making it look a bit like a 60s era nasa Mission Control system. Hard to explain, but for obvious reasons it’s not something I want to show off.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see!

I'd think it would be a non-issue with blank displays but your house, your rules. You have to be comfortable.
 

gpiggaz

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 14, 2010
Messages
2,538
Location
Tucson, AZ & Edmonds, WA
The boys are back at it again, This time they have a very obscure piece of Apollo hardware that was responsible for checking the Bus voltage and was made famous in the Apollo 13 disaster:

Very cool stuff, for geeks like me:

 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom